Another year, and another contest of the AMT organized in Torrent, Valencia. A contest counting more than 20 years of life, a classic of our small world, that demonstrates its good shape being possibly the best contest organized in Spain at the moment.
What does Torrent have that others lack? Well probably it's all about the experience and good organization in general. This year I had the honour again to be one of the judges of the Fantasy section, and I can only say good things about it. Care, good treatment, generosity and passion for modeling. A contest that year after year give more importance to Fantasy demonstrating that Torrent is steadily betting more on the new and the different.
I have been treated exquisitely by the AMT. Being judge is always a great responsibility and a huge work, but in Torrent they made it all very easy for us, Diego Esteban (dieguete), Julio Cabos (substituting Luca Baldino who finally couldn't make it) and me. Extreme attention to detail and to each miniature, proper organization, discipline and seriousness. In Torrent every second counts and all those years of experience show off when setting the scenery. Outside, a commercial area extremely tasty as usual, offering the latest releases of our world with the only downside of an intermittent meteorology. Inside, hundreds of pieces in exhibition perfectly guarded inside nice cabinets and under quality lighting, even better than last year. Luxury.
The bad thing of doing things right is that when they write about you there's nothing juicy to bring up. Therefore, as suggestion for improvement, what I put on the table is the eternal debate about the awards that are already known before the ceremony and how boring this makes it. I miss the award ceremonies from good old Golden Demon, where there was big emotion, surprise, disappointment and triumph. I manifested this to some members of the AMT, who knows if they will use my suggestions in the future. I hope so!
Regarding the miniatures, once again the winner was Miguel Matías with his incredible display filled with pirate orcs, repeating the Leganés triumph a few weeks ago. The painter everyone speaks about lately!
To me, the most important and relevant piece to mention of the contest came from Toni Nieto, using artistic modeling with a message of protest and social criticism. Again using cows in the message, is he doing a whole series?
From the rest of the Fantasy section participants, I could take quite a few photographs of not the best quality that some of you may have already seen in my Facebook. I share here the link for those of you who missed it so you don't have an excuse to say you couldn't see them. I hope they will let you have a better idea of what we witnessed there.
I think that judging the results, there is no doubt that next year we will be in Torrent again, as it is tradition already, to eat and drink abundantly and to enjoy good modeling: historical, present, and future. Remember, the week after Easter!
PS: Event photos by Beatriz Mercader. Thank you!
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